Exclusive first look at the religious right’s demands for Trump (SATIRE)

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump points to Liberty University President Jerry Falwall, Jr. after speaking in Lynchburg, Virginia, on January 18, 2016. Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

NEW YORK (RNS) Dr. Ben Carson is famous for separating conjoined twins, but the fundamentalist neurosurgeon now faces an even more impossible union. He’s playing matchmaker for the warring mad-about-everything-except-one-New York-billionaire and socially conservative wings of the Republican Party. The former GOP presidential front-runner turned Trump lackey will convene a meeting of the country’s grumpiest Christians to sparkling-water-and-dine the presumptive GOP nominee.

The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins has provided The Literalist with an exclusive preview of the seven demands the movement formerly known as the Moral Majority will make:

Learn how to pronounce the books of the Bible. If Trump is going to get the full-pulpit press of evangelicalism, his pandering game needs to be stepped up.

Promise to place giant cross on the roof of White House. Blocking Muslim migrants helps, but wouldn’t crystallizing Christianity as the official religion of America go even further?

No third divorce. Two are too much to stomach for many in the pews, but the Donald must commit to Melania as his final stop on the marital merry go round.

We cannot accept a Gambler-In-Chief. A roulette kingpin in the White House is good cause for born-again queasiness. The President’s name can’t be affixed to an Atlantic City casino, and the reformed Donald needs to shut down his plans for one in Vegas.

Repent of same-sex marriage support. Trump has until Labor Day to first go through his credit card statements and identify the gift he gave Jordan Roth and Richie Jackson for their wedding he attended, and then ask for that gift to be returned as act of penitence.

And above all else, appoint good Supreme Court justice. The real estate mogul must sign an affidavit committing himself to only nominate judges who define eggs as chicken fetuses because we can’t be sure they weren’t fertilized.

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Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons writes "The Literalist," a twice-weekly satirical news column for Religion News Service. His writing on faith and public policy has appeared in Sojourners, Religion Dispatches The Washington Post, The Texas Tribune and other publications. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and lives in Louisville, Kentucky.